Are You Doing Your Part to Kill God?

Those of us who are atheists, we all came from somewhere. And it’s not such a reach to think that somewhere in our back trails, there are others who might appreciate a hand, in order to get where we got.

I grew up in Houston, Texas, went to a high school with shitkickers and country people. Good enough people, but also people mired in religion. I keep in touch with a few of them, and unfortunately, they’ve gotten MORE goddy rather than less, over the years.

I think one of the reasons might be just that they never had any option presented to them. If I could travel back in time and share with some of my fellow students the things I know now, or even just get them thinking about some of it so they could figure it out on their own … I would damned sure do it.

Not being a time traveler, maybe I can at least offer some of what I know to students today. Those kids at my old alma mater, maybe I can intervene in some small way to help make their future lives different from “same like always, indefinitely into the future.”

The thing is, of the young people to whom I’ve broached the subject of atheism over the years, more than half have been open to the idea. They’ve already been wondering about it. Some of them were already pretty much there, but hadn’t had anybody to talk to, to firm up their understanding.

So, being an alumnus of your particular high school or college … do you think it might be a good thing if you did at least one thing to see that a secular student group got started back there?

Why not think about who you might contact, or how you might make it happen?

I attended a Catholic high school. Good luck starting an SSA club there!

Though, paradoxically, Catholic high school created the first chink in my goddy armor. Those nuns were going to raise a group of young women who would Go Forth And Make The World Better! We were taught about extreme poverty at home and abroad, that the world was full of physical and social need, and it was our job to do something about it.

That, of course, got me wondering, if God really loves all these people, why are they suffering so?

It was just a chink, but it was definitely something I pondered over as it grew more and more difficult to believe.

http://www.laughinginpurgatory.com/ Andrew Hall

We shouldn’t be simply content on killing Yahweh. The Hindus have many gods for the slaughter.

‘Tis Himself, OM

I went to a Catholic high school. I doubt the school administration would be receptive to an atheist/secularist club.

My college already has the Secular Student Alliance and my grad school has the Humanist Graduate Community (an organization I helped found almost 35 years ago).

Richard

I started a secular club at my highschool, it lasted one year after I left. Left me pretty sad.

fastthumbs

Hey, I went to clear lake elementary in the early 1970’s which was located about 40 miles southeast of Houston. At the time it was full of scientists and engineers all involved with NASA and the Apollo program. I don’t recall much in the way of religion in the neighborhood or at school, but I was aware that I was one of three “Jews”, but never got any obvious flack for not being Christian (I got a lot more proselytizing attention in high school in Wichita, KS, but that’s another story). Somehow, I don’t see a SSA chapter getting much traction.

About a year ago, I actually reconnected with a couple of the elementary classmates on Facebook… Almost all of them (still living in Texas and neighboring states) are sad to say mostly godbots. I kept thinking, “My stars, it’s full of gods”. On one of my former classmates Facebook page, I even posted a few mild retorts about Governor Perry and ineffectiveness of prayer to mitigate the draught (the topic was to organize a BIGGER prayer session) and was basically asked to leave… so I did.

Aquaria

I do my part to kill God by getting away from people who would kill me. That means I won’t even set foot in East Texas. I’ve been to that slime pit once since 1989. Don’t miss it. Won’t miss it.

The only way I would go back was if someone gave me $10 million. And that would be contingent on being able to leave after 4 hours. Every hour after that costs $10 million.

Does that answer your question?

Dan

I don’t know if God exists but sometimes I want to crush his skull like Roy Batty did in Blade Runner.